My name is Karen Kain, I am a witness to vaccine injury. My daughter Lorrin Danielle Kain was born healthy, but was injured and died in California from a “Hot” DPT vaccination, given to her on April 27th 1994. We settled with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1998. Lorrin died in my arms December 22, 2009. Today, one day after Governor Brown signed SB277, my heart revisits the helpless and hopeless feelings from 21 years ago. I was isolated and alone back in 1994 without the Internet and overwhelmed with feelings of grief, rage and fear for the future of my daughter. I do advocacy work to support all vaccine-injured families. I know the reality of how families navigate through life after vaccine injury, or should I say survive.

The good news is, that across the country pro health communities are uniting and we are strong. We will not go away. SB277 has provoked a powerful gathering of parents, doctors, advocates and those living with vaccine injury allowing them a platform and a voice to discuss vaccine safety, the unethics of administering an untested schedule, and how those injured for the greater good in the war against infection are marginalized, ignored for their sacrifice, and left to fend for themselves. Never before has this discussion been so open to the community. It is not only about my story of vaccine injury, but thousands are coming forward to share their experience. Every single injury no matter how large or small is important and must be held up for all to see.

I want to ask one question to Governor Brown, “Where is the data?” There is no science comparing vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children, the only way to make any ethical claims about safety and risk. How can you sign a bill forcing children to be vaccinated when there is no data or science to support the true risk associated with the vaccine schedule? There has never been a study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children. How can you tell Californians that vaccines are safe without data to make such a comparison? How can you sign this bill without this information? All parents want the same thing, to raise healthy and happy children. We are on the same side of the fence we just need more information to make medical decisions. Why would you take away the basic individual human right of medical autonomy and ethical informed consent based upon a policy of deliberate ignorance?

Further more, how can doctors ethically offer the vaccine schedule to vulnerable children when they do not have even the most basic science to inform their patients of potential risk and possible harm? Each doctor has a duty to the individual patient. If doctors don’t know the true risks, how can they ethically offer vaccines to the patient? I understand that many of the elderly doctors base their opinions from a long standing emotional history of holding dying babies in their arms from disease, however, they do not witness first hand what families living with Autism go through. Most doctors’ share a few moments with patients and move on to treat the next, never experiencing the true reality of Autism. Sure, there are a few heroes like Dr. Wakefield who could have turned his back on the vaccine injured community, but he is just that; a hero, a one in a million kind of person.

Every drug that is prescribed by a doctor has several studies comparing the proposed intervention to placebo. It is the oath of every medical doctor to practice ethical medicine. Without a study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children how can doctors give vaccines or tell parents to vaccinate their children? Without the science how dare they try force us to accept and receive a medical procedure.

It is the ethical burden upon the industry and government to determine the true risk associated with the vaccine schedule, not the burden of questioning parents to prove that they are unsafe. This dirty little secret that the CDC is keeping, regarding the true risk for Autism and other adverse events from vaccines is just not acceptable. I demand a study of the two groups of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated.

Parents, I ask you to stand tall and ask for honest science and “greener” vaccines, without the mercury and aluminum. Demand that we modify the vaccine schedule to be more aligned with the risks to individual children with varying susceptibilities. There is no shortage of alternative schedule ideas. We must be proactive and we must protect the health of our children. Right now the US has the most extensive vaccine schedule, second only to South Korea; South Korea’s Autism rate is 1 in 38.

Governor Brown has given us all an opportunity to unite, support the health of our children, share our stories of vaccine injury, and demand that true science be done, and the right to medical autonomy be preserved so that we as a people can make informed decisions about medical procedures. Americans have always had the right to refuse a medical procedure until now. We must be informed on the risk before we are asked to consent. We cannot discuss mandates of vaccines without having truly ethical information, it is complete nonsense that we are forced as parents to experiment with our children’s health. We must keep asking questions and demand comparisons regarding the chronic illness of children who are vaccinated versus the unvaccinated. Until we get this study we cannot accept this mandate.

This is a large and informative paper. I encourage you to go to the footnote 26 and click on the link to see the actual CDC document, an abstract submitted for publication, which was never released, listing the causation risk.

Thank you James A. Moody, Esq., for your support on sharing this information.

I was recently asked to share my story about my daughter Lorrin’s vaccine injury, before the California Senate, on April 8th, 2015 in opposition to SB277. I travel around the US talking to families who have unique children. I always mention Lorrin’s vehicle of injury, however, my focus is not on vaccines but how to help families navigate through parenting special needs children. My topic for 2015 is, “Caring for the caregiver”, a very important subject that is near and dear to my heart.

On April 8th I stepped out of the car, with the Capitol in full view and immediately was greeted by families wearing bright red “California Coalition for Health Choice” t-shirts. Pictures were taken; we then proceeded to the Capitol steps. Everywhere I looked there were people of all ages holding signs with their favorite “Pro-Health Choice” slogan. I felt over whelmed by the turnout and knew that it was going to be an emotional day. I spoke on the steps after Eric Gladen, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Dr. Bob Sears. I watched, as the crowd grew larger and larger. When I spoke, I asked the attendees to raise a hand if they have a member of their family who is vaccine injured, I then asked them to raise two hands if they their family contained two or more members suffering from vaccine injury; a sea of hands appeared before me. Many more spoke that morning sharing their vaccine injury story and or voice in opposition of SB277.

I went inside the Capitol with 5 other speakers who were there to testify against the bill. The halls were crowded and voices were hushed in an attempt to keep the disruption of our overwhelming presence down for those who were conducting business. Hundreds of parents, doctors and children stood waiting in line. The six of us designated to speak walked in first. We took our seats in the front row marked for those who were there to testify.

I would like to share with you that it has been 5 years since Lorrin died and even longer since I have been treated as a second-class citizen in public. Back when Lorrin was alive I was used to having people get up and move away from us at restaurants and in the theater. Often people would suggest that I put Lorrin in the corner so that she would be “out of the way”. So when the Sergeant at Arms asked all of us testifying against the bill to move from the front row I was triggered to the old days when Lorrin was by my side. I did not want to get caught up in any confrontation, I needed to keep my focus, but I felt angry as I got out of my seat. Senator Pan’s Pro testifiers immediately sat down where we had been.

As I walked in to testify the first thing that I was told was that I could NOT bring in any signs. When the pro SB277 speakers spoke and Ariel Loop shared her story of her four-month-old son who contracted the measles, I thought it very tricky that Senator Pan walked around the senate showing a poster board of pictures of Ariel’s son. There was a picture of her with her son at Disneyland, a picture of her baby with a cloth mask covering his nose and mouth and one sleeping. I listened to Ariel’s testimony of how INCONVIENCED she was whilst dealing with her son’s measles. She also stated that she was deeply afraid of taking her son out of the house for fear of all the unvaccinated children who would infect her baby.

I must add a few points here:

1. As Senator Pan’s panel had the floor a toddler ran during his moms testimony calling out, “Mommy” over and over; words that were never spoken by my daughter.

2. I was surprised that Ariel Loop brought her young baby to an event that was filled with hundreds, maybe a thousand UNVACINATED adults and children. I know that during my daughters first years of life, Lorrin missed out on many events due to her medical fragility. It wasn’t until 6th grade that Lorrin was able to attend school year round so that she would not get sick during the cold and flu season.

3. When you have children life changes and it often becomes full of inconveniences. For me as a parent of a vaccine-injured child, things were never typical. I gave Lorrin 6 anti-seizure medications a day, nebulizer treatments and numerous therapies. She was hospitalized 171 days in the ICU in one year alone. I administered steroid shots into her tiny legs at the age of one, put her into a comma twice to stop her from having constant seizures. She had a feeding tube, tracheostomy and had a rod put into her spine so that she would be able to live eat and breathe, until she died in my arms at the age of 15. This is just a smattering of what Lorrin endured during her lifetime. I would love to have shared my pictures of Lorrin being on life support at the age of 3 with a collapsed lung and double pneumonia. And lets not forget the last year of her life she had diarrhea sometimes 4 times a day, weighing 65 pounds. Living with vaccine injury gets a bit messy. These pictures would have said way more than any words.

4. In the same amount of time that Senator Pan refers to a measles epidemic, 9,000 children were diagnosed with Autism.

I want to thank Senator Hernandez for giving us the opportunity to share for 20 minutes our plea for freedom of choice in America. Since that time there has been talk of Senator Pan being bullied and or threatened. I have made a commitment to go forward in love and do not condone any behavior that is filled with anger and hatred. That is just not what Lorrin was about. I do my best to share my story with love reminding people that my daughter’s life is equally important as the next child’s. Her life mattered, as all of our children matter.

This has become a desperate time as our human rights are being threatened. I listened to Senator Pan, while he presented his pro argument, and stated facts that were simply not true. It is time that our government must understand that we as a people will no longer stand by and listen to the lies that are being told about the vaccine statistics, Autism statistics and lies from the CDC. Without being too redundant, the vaccine schedule has never been studied, our kids are sick and if we stand by and allow SB277 to pass, by 2025 or sooner the Autism rates will be 1 in 2.

As I flew home I was notified that SB277 passed the first stages. I guess you can say that I knew from the first moment that I walked into the senate room that was to be the fate of the bill. I could tell by the lack of interest and look of boredom on the faces of the senate towards our 6 speakers. Even as I spoke of Lorrin’s death it seemed that I was barely making a connection. The playing field was not for a moment level, even though we talked about decisions of life and death for our babies. I realize that work has just begun on this vey important matter of our children’s health. I encourage you to please make your voices heard and stop this bill. Write the California senate, go down to the Capitol, call and tell everyone you know to do the same. We must protect our babies and their future.

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